70 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



question represents quite a type of its own, being nearly gallinaceous in form, and re- 

 markable for an exceedingly short gonys. That this form is said to have only one 

 carotid, while the other Alcidae have two, is perhaps of less moment, though we must 

 remember that the grebes were similarly specialized. 



The sea-dove is truly hyperborean in its breeding habits, being found in incredible 

 numbers along the island shores of the western Arctic Ocean. Nordenskjold gives a 

 very graphic description, from which we extract the following. The rotge occurs only 

 sparingly off the southern part of Novaja Zemlja, and does not, so far as I know, 

 breed there. The situation of the land is too southerly, the accumulations of stones 



FIG. 31. Uria ringvia, spectacled guillemot. 



along the sides of the mountains too inconsiderable, for the thriving of this little bird. 

 But on Spitzbergen it occurs in incredible numbers, and breeds in the talus a hundred 

 to two hundred metres high, which frost and weathering have formed at several places 

 on the steep slopes of the coast mountain sides. These stone heaps form the palace of 

 the king-auk, richer in rooms and halls than any other in the wide round world. If 

 one climbs up among the stones, he sees at intervals actual clouds of fowl suddenly 

 emerge from the ground, either to swarm round in the air or else to fly out to sea, and 

 at the same time, those that remain make their presence underground known by an 



